Chapter Seven Damien
I’d always loved the beach. Growing up in Chicago, I spent plenty of time on the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan as a kid, running among the dunes and swimming in the freshwater.
There, the water was a deeper blue. The water in front of me now was a vibrant, turquoise color.
It was warm as it rushed over my feet where I stood at the shore.
“Hey, who is that?” Jake asked from beside me.
I turned my head to follow his gaze further down the beach. There were a lot of people milling around, but I was pretty sure he was looking where a familiar woman stood with pink-streaked hair. “That’s Heather. Her twin sister is one of the bridesmaids.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “I know that. I’m talking about the man with her. He looks familiar.”
I squinted my eyes as I studied the man standing in the sand with Heather. He was tall enough to tower over her, and she had to tilt her head back to look up into his face. Now that Jake mentioned it, he did look familiar…
“Is that Grey Lynch?” Ryan asked, walking up to us and joining in our open staring.
“The football player?” Jake asked.
I nodded. “Technically, he’s a former football player. He retired at thirty-five but five years later, he started coaching.”
“The man‘s impressive,” Ryan said. “He broke the record for most rushing yards when he was a rookie quarterback. And as a coach, his team almost went to the Super Bowl last year. Year before that, he was the NFL Coach of the Year,” Ryan said.
Jake cut him a sharp look. “You write his biography or something?”
Ryan socked him in the arm. “I’m a fan. I wonder what he’s doing here?”
“Vacationing, I’m sure,” I said. “What I’m wondering is how he knows Heather?”
She lived in Chicago like the rest of us, but I knew that Grey Lynch coached for the Bobcats in Louisville, Kentucky. He was also significantly older than Heather. It seemed unlikely that they’d met before.
As we watched, Heather laughed at something Grey said, playfully slapping his arm. He grinned at her, and Ryan made a small sound of disbelief.
“Are we sure that’s Grey Lynch?” Ryan asked. “I’ve always heard he’s a complete asshole.”
I chuckled. “I think the team’s PR person prefers to say he has a ‘direct communication style.’”
“So… asshole.”
“What are you guys staring at?”
All three of us turned at the sound of Leanne’s voice.
We’d been so distracted that we didn’t realize she’d arrived and was standing right behind us.
Kelsie was beside her, and I immediately took in the stiffness of her shoulders and the forced quality of her smile.
I couldn’t see her eyes behind her big sunglasses, but I had a feeling they were trained on me.
“We were just speculating about the man Heather’s talking to. We think it’s a famous NFL coach,” Ryan said, stepping closer to Leanne and putting an arm around her waist.
For no good reason, I took note of the space that separated Kelsie and me. It felt like so much more than the three feet that it actually was.
“You’re standing here gossiping like a group of teenage girls?” Kelsie asked, and Jake laughed.
“We’re curious, that’s all,” he said.
“Nosy is more like it,” Leanne quipped.
“You’re right,” Ryan said, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Let’s get in the water.”
We all headed to the lounge chairs and umbrellas that we rented from the resort, and I bent to grab a bottle of water out of the cooler we brought along. I straightened with the cold drink in my hand, then went rigid when Kelsie pulled her dress right off over her head.
The red swimsuit she wore underneath the dress was nowhere near the most revealing one on this beach, but that didn’t matter.
My mouth went dry as my eyes soaked in the sight of her.
It was a one-piece, but there were cutouts in the sides that revealed the smooth skin of her hips and the curve of her waist. Her breasts pressed against the front of the tight swimsuit, which dipped low enough to show off cleavage that made my mind run wild with thoughts of burying my face there.
I blinked and forced myself to look away.
What the hell was I doing? Kelsie and I slept together, but that didn’t mean that was going to start thinking about her that way.
She was my friend. My best friend. Not someone I ogled and constantly thought about taking to bed.
She was beautiful, but she was more than that, and I needed to remember it.
One night of mind-blowing sex didn’t mean that I could start fantasizing about her.
Of course, my dick didn’t get that memo, and I could feel my erection growing in my swim trunks.
Not the best time to get hard, when hiding it was practically impossible, so all I could do was think about something completely unsexy—basketball usually worked, but naked grandmas were a decent backup option—and hope that no one noticed my condition before I could get myself under control.
Things had been weird between us since we slept together, and I didn’t want to make it worse by pitching a tent just because she was standing in front of me. I just wanted things to go back to normal.
“Hey, why don’t we take a walk?” I suggested to Kelsie. The rest of the group was already heading back toward the water, but I wasn’t ready to follow them yet.
She hesitated, biting her bottom lip. Just a few days ago, she never would have had to even think about it.
She was always at my side, the two of us spending as much time together as we could.
I shared everything with her, trusted her more than anyone.
She was the one person I could depend on, and this moment of hesitation filled me with bone-deep fear that I’d ruined all of that when I took her to bed.
“We can collect seashells,” I said, remembering her saying that she wanted to do that while we were here.
Kelsie called herself “crafty” in a slightly self-deprecating way, but I always thought she was an artist. She didn’t paint masterpieces, but she created things that brought beauty to her own life.
Coasters made out of resin and pressed flowers, holiday centerpieces made of pinecones and evergreens, and mosaic stepping stones for her garden made from mortar and pebbles.
She even made me a keychain from leather stamped with the emblem of the fire department logo on one side and my badge number on the other.
I didn’t know what she had planned for the seashells she wanted to collect, but I was sure it would be another imaginative way to make something amazing.
“Okay,” she finally said.
We fell into step together, walking along the beach where the water rolled over our feet and the wet sand shifted with each step. I wanted to say something, anything, to fix the problem between us, but words failed me.
Things had always been so easy with Kelsie, and I never wanted that to change. It was the reason that I never allowed myself to think about her as a potential sexual partner. I didn’t want things to get messy, to ruin the closeness that we shared. Now, I didn’t know how to erase my mistake.
As we walked, she spotted seashells in the sand and scooped them up until she was carrying a sizable collection in both hands. I didn’t find any because as she was scanning the ground, I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off her.
Her blonde hair whipped around wildly in the salty breeze coming off the ocean, and the sun gleamed on her tanned skin.
I wished she wasn’t wearing those big, round sunglasses so that I could see her eyes.
They were always so expressive, sparking with emotion that made it so easy to feel connected to her.
“Do you remember when we met?” I asked. “The first thing you ever said to me?”
We’d only been walking for maybe ten minutes, but we’d left the crowded part of the beach behind. Here, the shore was broken up by rock outcroppings, and we had to move away from the water.
“Of course, I do,” Kelsie said. She stopped walking and turned to me, and I could feel the weight of her gaze, despite the sunglasses. “I brought the kids in my program to the firehouse, and you were the first firefighter I saw when we walked in.”
I smiled. “You marched right up to me, a stranger, looked me in the eyes and asked if I was a good role model for a bunch of rowdy kids.”
“I believe I said they were a group of wonderful kids that were eager to learn about your job.”
I laughed. “That might be what you said, but one of them snuck into the dispatch room and sang an entire Post Malone song over the comms. Another one put stickers on the face shield of every single helmet. They were rowdy.”
Kelsie laughed, and something inside me ached at hearing the carefree sound. “You were a pretty good role model, though.”
I shrugged. “Your no-nonsense approach made me take the whole thing more seriously. It was just another community obligation I had to get through until you demanded more from me. You were a strong influence from the beginning.”
“What made you think about that?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I guess I’m just feeling nostalgic.”
I glanced down for the first time during this walk and saw a shell right in front of Kelsie. “There’s one.”
She stopped walking, and I bent down to grab it. Bone white and unbroken, it was perfect. I smiled and held it out to her, but she didn’t take it.
“You know what, you should keep it,” she said, her smile soft. “It would be perfect for remembering this trip.”
There was something about her words and the tone of her voice that made my stomach twist. It was as if she was saying this was the last time we’d do something like this together. As if the shell would be a way to remember her after we left this place.
But no, that couldn’t be what she meant. Kelsie and I were solid, and we’d be fine over time. We had to be.
Still, I tucked the shell into the pocket of my swim trunks.